When physicist Paul Doherty, a senior staff scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, wants to help budding science teachers understand the material they鈥檒l impart to students, he shows them the light.
He takes them to one of the many exhibits at the that allow them to experience the wonder of physics for themselves, including the way a beam of light bends as it goes through glass. Then he asks them what they see.
Next, the teachers craft lesson plans, or classroom versions of exhibits called 鈥渟nacks,鈥� on light refraction that they can take back to their own students.
This inquiry-based, hands-on approach to science instruction is at the core of the Exploratorium鈥檚 Teacher Induction Program, a training initiative offered by the museum鈥檚 for first- and second-year secondary science teachers.
鈥淲e show our teachers that what they should really do is start science class not with a list of words to memorize, but with an encounter of the phenomena itself,鈥� said Doherty, a former university physics professor. 鈥淏y listening to what teachers see, I know as an instructor where they are and where to start working with them. That鈥檚 modeling what they can do for their own students.鈥�
The Exploratorium, a public learning laboratory and museum that explores science, art, and human perception, has been a professional home for science teachers and scientists in the San Francisco Bay Area for decades鈥攕erving as a think tank of collaboration between those in the classroom and those in the lab.
The museum鈥檚 teacher-induction program, which spans two years for each cohort, is likely the first and longest-running science-specific initiative of its kind, according to Julie Yu, a senior scientist and the director of the Teacher Institute. It was created in 1998 out of a desire to help new science teachers thrive and stay in the classroom. Most participants in each 25-member cohort teach locally, many in high-needs schools.
The 50 teachers in the program at any one time have access to a rare mix of pedagogical and subject-area expertise: Half the teaching staff at the museum鈥檚 Teacher Institute are Ph.D. scientists, while the other half are veteran teachers with 10 to 30 years of classroom experience.
鈥淲e are modeling鈥攏ot necessarily intentionally鈥攖he kind of teaching and excitement for science that we hope we would see in classrooms,鈥� said Yu, who also started out as a new teacher in the program. 鈥淭he program is founded on the philosophy of meeting teachers where they are and giving them what they need.鈥�
Responding to a Need
To apply to the Exploratorium鈥檚 induction program, teachers must be in their first or second year of teaching in a local secondary science classroom and be willing to adopt an inquiry-based instructional approach. But the program turns away as many as 40 applicants for the 25 available spots each fall, using an analysis of instructional-support needs to select candidates.
Funding for the program began with a grant from the National Science Foundation, but its reputation has since expanded to contributions from public and private sources to the extent that every teacher in the program not only attends for free but also receives a stipend.
Teachers in the program attend at least four pedagogy and content workshops at the museum each semester, as well as a three-week summer institute and elective courses for specific subjects. The program covers all areas of grades 6-12 science鈥攊ncluding how to adapt teaching to the Next Generation Science Standards.
That part wasn鈥檛 a far leap, said Doherty, because the standards鈥� engagement with science through activity rather than memorization 鈥渆ncapsulates the way we鈥檝e been teaching for 32 years.鈥�
As the push for better STEM learning continues in K-12 schools and careers, support programs for math and science educators have been growing. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education estimates that more than 4,000 science-specific teacher-induction and teacher-training programs are operating nationwide, according to its analysis of 2015 data from the U.S. Department of Education. Programs such as the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation鈥檚 Teaching Fellows Program, Math for America鈥檚 Early Career Teacher Fellowship, and the New Teacher Center鈥檚 e-Mentoring for Student Success help early-career science, technology, engineering, and math educators.
The Exploratorium鈥檚 participants are drawn from a state 鈥�24-to-1 compared to the national 16-to-1 average鈥攁ccording to a report this year from the Learning Policy Institute, a California-based think tank. The report also says that California鈥檚 supply of teachers is at a 12-year low, and enrollment in teacher-preparation programs has dipped by more than 70 percent in the last 10 years.
The demand for teachers is particularly high in STEM education fields. In the past four years, according to the Learning Policy Institute鈥檚 report, the number of preliminary credentials given to new and prepared science teachers in California has dropped 14 percent. The national teacher-attrition rate for all K-12 science teachers is similar to that in other subject fields, at 6.5 percent annually compared with 7.7 percent for all teachers, by the National Center for Education Statistics. But a found that 25 percent of secondary science and math teachers left in 2009-10 after three years, compared with 10 percent of other secondary teachers.
The Exploratorium鈥檚 induction program is designed to counter such trends by giving new science teachers access to a supportive professional community and enhancing their development as educators. And evidence suggests that the program鈥檚 approach is effective. of its induction-program graduates through 2010鈥攚ith a 37 percent response rate鈥攆ound that 91 percent of respondents stayed in the classroom for at least five years, and 73 percent of graduates who responded are still teaching in K-12 settings. Only 3 percent had left education-related fields altogether.
For Laura Hodder, who was in one of the program鈥檚 earliest cohorts, the Exploratorium鈥檚 philosophy of science learning through exploration has provided a 鈥渓ifeline鈥� for her vocation as an educator. As an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, Hodder now teaches science curriculum and instruction to student-teachers working toward certification. Her piece of parting advice for prospective teachers is to apply to the Exploratorium, so they can 鈥渕ove beyond what the textbook has to offer and craft classrooms that get students excited about science,鈥� she said.
鈥楢 Safe Place鈥� to Grow
The Exploratorium has a bustling science-educator community that the museum鈥檚 leaders fondly call a 鈥済uild,鈥� and former participants in the induction program often return as support staff themselves. As a result, new teachers can develop a deep understanding of the content they will be teaching from both scientists and those who have experience in K-12 classrooms.
鈥淭here are so many hurdles to becoming a teacher, and science teachers have all the material to learn on top of that,鈥� said program coordinator Lori Lambertson. 鈥淏ecause we exist outside of the state and district, we can provide a safe place for new teachers to grow as learners.鈥�
Through the program, participants develop curricula and experiments for their classroom with the help of staff scientists. The institute also provides additional support in and out of the classroom from mentors and classroom coaches and hosts an active listserv run by the staff scientists and teachers.
Robert Coverdell, a current second-year participant, used those support resources to design a fall curriculum for his students at Downtown High School in the San Francisco Unified district. The students at the credit-recovery school will learn math by studying the geometry of their faces and the science of gender by looking at differences in the brain. Coverdell said his biggest challenge has been creating a unique curriculum every semester for his math, science, and theater program. With the induction-program staff鈥檚 input, he has been able to craft lessons more quickly, he said.
鈥淭his year, I feel so much more comfortable coming to school every day, and I can see the students responding better because class is more linear in fashion,鈥� Coverdell said. 鈥淗aving that space to talk to other teachers about the content I am teaching is so much more fruitful than teaching by myself.鈥�
Scientific Mindset
The 21 veteran teachers who serve as mentors and classroom coaches in the program attend training at the Exploratorium鈥檚 Leadership Institute not only to help new teachers but also to strengthen their own leadership at the school and district level. Tammy Cook-Endres and Zeke Kossover, former K-12 science educators who co-direct the program, invite alumni of the Teacher Institute to apply to become mentors and coaches after observing their support of other teachers.
鈥淧roviding the evidence for figuring things out is one of the jobs of teachers,鈥� Kossover said. 鈥淲e want mentors and coaches to be focused on being able to give that kind of science-specific support which is often not available to teachers in any other way. These teachers want to give back and help new teachers because they know how hard it is.鈥�
Bree Barnett Dreyfuss, a physics teacher at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, Calif., is an alum of the Exploratorium induction program and a current staff mentor. She said she took the position as mentor to provide the same kind of support that got her through her own first year of teaching 11 years ago. Much of her mentoring work this year with seven new teachers is drawn from her experiences in the classroom, but she also tries to provide the tools to let teachers experiment on their own. When she and her mentees get together for meetings, the conversation is often about what鈥檚 going to get teachers through Monday morning.
鈥淭his is an incredibly difficult job that is not well-understood and not well-supported,鈥� said Barnett Dreyfuss. 鈥淎t the Exploratorium, you have this giant group of people that are all trained in the same mindset, and we all support each other. When you have that kind of enthusiasm you are building within teachers, that will transfer to the students.鈥�
